Printed in the Fall 2014 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Boyd, Tim. "International President's Inaugural Address" Quest 102. 4 (Fall 2014): pg. 123-125.
This speech, for the occasion of Tim Boyd's inauguration as eighth international president of the Theosophical Society, was delivered at the Society's world headquarters in Adyar, Chennai, India, on May 8, 2014.
Greetings, everyone. It is a great honor to be here with all of you. It is a humbling experience that so many of you would take the time and have the interest in the Theosophical Society and who its president might be. I am here today because we have recently completed an election and now we are having an inauguration.
The Theosophical Society, since its founding, has been dedicated to the democratic form of choosing its leadership. A vote has taken place. Some people have voted one way, and others have voted differently. To those who saw that there was some value in the possibility that I might assume this position, I am thankful. For all those who saw another choice and another possibility, I am equally thankful, because all of us have invested ourselves not just in a person, but in an organization that has a deep history, a powerful vision, and a mission for the upliftment of humanity. So the individual who ends up standing in front of the microphone is certainly a secondary consideration.
I find myself in the position of being the eighth president of the Theosophical Society since its founding in 1875 in New York City. Many of you have known some of the people who have occupied this position, and each one of them, without doubt, has been a great individual. None of them was perfect, but all of them were perfect in their devotion to the Theosophical Society and in their life of service to this work that they saw as so valuable. As the eighth president, I am the most recent one to bring my own particular set of imperfections to this work, but I promise that I will try. More than that, I cannot promise.
Since its inception the Theosophical Society has been engaged in a very important work around the world. Much of it we have seen, but a great deal has taken place in the most important areas that it came into being to serve, that is, the inner levels of our being. If we were to really try to put our finger on what it is that the Society has done, we could say that it has been engaged in seeding human consciousness, much like a farmer seeds the land, with seeds of great potency that it was hoped would spring to life. The particular name that was given to this work was Theosophy, the Ageless Wisdom, which speaks of the possibilities for unfoldment of capacities that each of us have, but that seem to remain hidden, latent, throughout the course of our lifetimes.
With the introduction of the Theosophical Society, much of that hidden landscape of our consciousness became vividly described, and an avenue for actual transformation was depicted for us all. When we look at it historically, one seed that was planted grew and arose in someone like Annie Besant. Another seed sprouted into someone by the name of J. Krishnamurti. Other seeds that were planted relate to contemporary scientists and philosophers like Rupert Sheldrake, poets like W.B. Yeats, artists like Wassily Kandinsky. The movement of human thought, the arts, and all of the realms of expansion from the inner to the outer have been deeply influenced by this act of planting these various seeds.
While all of that has its own great importance, to you and to me probably the true importance of this act of planting seeds is that they have been planted equally in each of us. We now await how they will arise and flower. The work of the TS in the world and its influence on world consciousness is clear and undeniable. Nothing that we see in the world today has not been touched by this wisdom called Theosophy and its Society. Each one of us is a recipient of this great benefit. The original injunction of the Society to popularize the knowledge of Theosophy in many ways has been fulfilled splendidly.
If we trace our thinking back to the context of 1875, when this Society arose, the various ideas and concepts that we take for granted today—such as the sevenfold constitution of the human being; that we are more than just the body; that there are layers and layers, planes of existence, which are functioning simultaneously within each of us—were not just remote ideas, they were unknown, particularly to the Western world.
| Tim Boyd delivering his inaugural address at the Adyar headquaters in May 2014. |
Ideas that are quite common and ordinary in the Eastern world—such as karma and reincarnation, that are a fact that people build their lives upon—to the Western world of Europe and the Americas, these ideas were unknown. Today, any dictionary in the world contains all of these terms, and the ideas have taken root in a popular sense. It is not uncommon when I am in the United States at a coffee shop or in a grocery store to overhear a conversation with someone talking about their karma, or about reincarnation, or about some level of dreams and their meanings. All of these things were unheard of in the world of 1875, and now are quite common. Those particular seeds have flowered.
This blessing is also part of the problem. The Theosophical teachings present a comprehensive view. However, the world at large has adopted it in its particulars, taking what has been of interest, leaving behind the greater view within which it resides. So such concepts as karma, planes of Nature, spiritual evolution, even such beings as the Masters of the Wisdom, have been diminished—reduced to commodities and mere details in the ceaseless quest for self-satisfaction. This is something of a problem.
For a member of the Theosophical Society, this condition of the world brings certain questions to mind. At the time the Society was started, it was viewed as a soothing balm of truth that could do much, if properly presented, to alleviate many of the self-induced sufferings in our world. Few people would argue that the same sorts of selfish motives that were active in the hearts and minds of many in 1875 are less active in 2014. If anything, the level of selfish competition has increased. Nations, groups, individuals, find themselves in constant contest with one another—for what? Everybody, it seems, is trying to get more. More of what? You pick it: more control, more money, more fame, more. The same sorts of hungers that gnaw at the hearts of people now have gnawed at the hearts of people before, even in the presence of something that we call "Theosophy." What we describe as religious sectarianism does not differ in any of its details from warring nations or from predatory businesses. Lump them all together and they all look the same. Everybody is competing for "market share"—their piece of the global pie.
The scenario of today is not the hoped-for vision of humanity that so many people projected into the future at the time of the founding of the TS. It forces us to ask certain questions of ourselves. The first might be: "What, in fact, has become of this soothing balm of truth that the Theosophical Society introduced into the world?" There is no religion higher than truth; there is no dharma higher than truth—no person, no ideas, no movement, no teachings.
In the face of this most recent expression of the Ageless Wisdom, what has been the response of our world? This also brings to mind another question: As members of the Theosophical Society, as people who actually value and try to live by our experience of this Truth, what is our role in bringing about this state of affairs in the world? Have we abdicated a role that should fall to those who, at least in theory, have knowledge? It causes us to ask yet another question: Is knowledge, even knowledge that we describe as Theosophical, sufficient? Is it enough to say that "I know," and that I know something which has been pointed to by wise persons over all the ages as something of great value?
Somehow, the answer that the world gives us is that perhaps something more is needed—and what is it? Everyone is endowed with some degree of sensitivity in perhaps slightly different ways. There are few people who are not aware that there is a new pattern emerging in today's world. We see it happening, we know that something is taking place, but our ability to describe its outlines, to point to the way in which it is going to emerge, is somehow limited. Still, everybody knows that something is going on in this world.
There is a mighty consciousness that is wanting to make itself known in the world. If it were a person, we could describe it as something seeking to walk among us. There is this consciousness, always searching, just as water searches for ways to flow. This consciousness is perpetually available to openings through which it can make itself felt. For those who have embraced the spiritual path, to whom the ideas and actual experience of Theosophy have become meaningful, we can describe our role as becoming that opening.
There is a problem for us. It may sound blunt, and perhaps it is better not said, but the world today, with its deep yearning for some connection with something that is "real," something that speaks to the inner beauty, the inner calling that is in every person—that world—is not beating a path to our door, and there is no reason to expect it. Perhaps the question that would be more valuable to us is: Are we beating a path to the door of those in need? This work that lies before us is the same work that lay before the founders; it has not changed. It is the work of becoming open to a world in need.
One of the great TS presidents, Annie Besant, talked about the spiritual life in many ways. One of the things she said about spirituality, and particularly about our efforts and our approach to it, is that we should let our spirituality be judged by our effect on the world—not by how good we feel about ourselves, not about our ability to become quiet in our private moments—none of those things: "Let our spirituality be judged by our effect on the world. Let us be careful that the world may grow purer, better, happier because we are living in it." Perhaps that may not be everyone's standard for spirituality, but it is a valid one for us to consider.
I will share with you two overlooked passages from Christian spirituality. These are the ones that people tend not to quote. The first one is: "Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it" (Ps. 127:1). The second, and one that formed the basis for the work of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and others of that depth of perception, is "Resist not evil" (Matt. 5:39). The connection for me between those two quotes has nothing to do with evil, definitely nothing to do with building houses. It has to do with a state of our being which perhaps is sometimes overlooked. In a word, that condition of our being, of our mind, could be described as a state of openness.
Like the door is open, like the window is open, it is a condition of our being that resists nothing, that blocks nothing, that does not turn from that which our minds categorize as ugly or low. Resist not. Resistance, of its very nature, is the response of a mind that is trapped in fear. "Self-protection" is the mind that resists. For those who are genuinely wise, this behavior may even seem humorous, if it did not cause so much pain. A modern Taoist philosopher asked, then answered, a question: "Why is it that you are so unhappy? Because 99.9 percent of everything you do, of everything you think, of everything you want, is for your self, and there isn't one." The self that occupies so much of our attention, that we take excessive pains to beautify, to harmonize, to get the right diet for, to think the right thoughts, this self is, by its very nature, without substance.
The more outwardly acquisitive forms of selfishness—grabbing for money, houses, reputation—are easy to identify. The more subtle ones, like our commitment to an enduring self that will continue to exist from body to body, from culture to culture, are more difficult. When closely examined, no one has yet been able to point to this elusive self. Answers are good, but it is the question that is more valuable. The question establishes the focus for living. Answers tend to be small things. So these are the questions, the matters that should be stirring within us. At this time we are wanting for nothing in this work of unfoldment. The seed has been planted within us, the soil, the water, the nutrients, are all to be found in this moment. The only thing that prevents the light from shining and stirring these seeds into life are the obstacles we throw up, like clouds.
They say that who you are speaks so loudly that people cannot hear a word that you are saying. Your inner state is what is being called out for. That state is this quality of openness; not tolerance, not merely accepting different creeds, religions, or races. While that is important, openness demands something more of us.
In this moment, let us respond to this ever-calling invitation to openness, which is the only way in which we as individuals can be transformed, and the only way in which humanity can experience the regeneration that has been spoken of by past presidents. That is the goal of the Theosophical work as a whole.